I guess the episode confirmed the leaks on Free Folk are legit.

For some reason, it has made me surprisingly little interested on this season.

Well for the first episode it played way better than the leak described it in the first place. 

The key is in the execution.

Exactly, it boggles me how some only care about the basic points of the story on a show like this.

I forgot that, becuase it makes zero sense on several levels.  

Shireen was supposed to be burnt to a crisp in the upcoming book, except not by Stannis. They should have just let the Red Woman do it instead of Stannis.

That I could see, makes more sense to have Melisandre kill Chireen given her track record and Stannis adoring her and her value to his line of succession. 

Anyone know who the dead girl and father were supposed to be? The Hound seemed to know them but I can't recall who they might be?

Also, how is there no one at all on Dragonstone? Stannis didn't ride out with all the women, elderly and children, where are they?

Back in season 4, the hound robbed and left them for dead.  

They most likely left because there was no king and Baratheon house is officially dead, and no on knows about Gendry's true identity except Melisandre shame that he didn't have a bigger role in show. Also the Island is tiny and has no resources quote by Stannis "The island itself was and is nothing. It had no gold or gems to lure Valyrian nobility, all it has is rock."

It's not the spoilers that fazed me, I guess I'm just too tired of the whole thing at this point. I've been following ASOIAF for over a decade. Most of the mysteries readers have mused about for many years have already been given answers by the TV series. We are left with arguably the weakest part of the story - the fantasy-heavy invasions of the Others and Daenerys. Props to D&D for giving it a closure, though, since the story obviously ballooned out of Martin's capabilities to bring it to a reasonable conclusion.

Not to mention that, as the series and books move on, its quirks, flaws and literary tools become more evident and it's easier to guess how the plot will unveil, who has plot armor and who is going to die. For instance, despite the fame of ASOIAF on this issue, POV characters on the books very rarely die; none of the 16 main ones actually ever died besides the Stark parents.